A Match Made In… Common Sense!

Share this

What’s your Stageline unit going to look like when it’s set up onsite? What’s the best way to plan out your light, sound, and banner rigging? Vectorworks Spotlight has the answers.

The industry-standard design software for entertainment, staging, and events, Vectorworks Spotlight allows users to work from initial design and concept through documentation all the way into complete 3D renderings of stages accurate down to the finest detail. Designers have long called on Vectorworks to create multifaceted sound and lighting plots, produce documentation, and create plans they can share easily—and accurately.

Among Vectorworks’ many advantages, is its enormous library of lights, speakers, gels, and gobos, which allow you to design precisely what you want with exactly what you have on hand.

Stageline stages weren’t encoded into the program – until now.

“We had several of our users request that we add Stageline to our library,” says Justin Van Hassel, CAD dontent developer at Vectorworks. “They could get this information from Stageline, but they would often have to do some clean up to bring it to a point where they could use it in Vectorworks, because it’s in a different format. Stageline agreed to place this information in our software, so users are now able to drag and drop and plug and play. It’s as simple as dragging it out of the folder, putting it in a document, and now you’re ready to work.”

“By adding in these products as symbols,” notes Robert Books, senior CAD content developer at Vectorworks, “designers will be able to put their concepts and their designs easily into our software and be ready to disseminate to who they need to, whether it’s facilities directors, facilities managers, or event coordinators.”

The end result is that a Vectoworks Spotlight user can now design directly onto any Stageline stage pulled from the Ressource Manager, making the end result the most accurate possible design for sending out to the person installing Stageline products.

Stageline Technical Advisor Dane Earwaker notes that Stageline users have been using Vectorworks for a long time, because it’s simply the right tool for the job.

“But when they would import our 3D,” he says, “there was some work needed and conversion issues. There were lots of requests to be able to throw an accurate model of our stage into Vectorworks, throw on all the lights – Vectorworks has a huge, great library of entertainment gear. So users can throw all their gear on there: put on banners and video screens and make a beautiful render. Then they can give that to the promoter and say, ‘This is what we’re going to deliver.’”

More than a match made in heaven, this was a match made in common sense. Vectorworks and Stageline are finally together with content exclusively available for Vectorworks Service Select members. For all other Vectorworks users, Stageline’s content will be part of the complete 2019 content package. Life is about to get an awful lot easier for designers.

About Dane Earwaker

In 2008, Dane joined the Stageline team as a stage technician. He spent years “on the road” gaining considerable experience and extensive product knowledge on all Stageline products, which also included training clients on stage operation and best practices. This knowledge continues to prove invaluable in his current role providing logistical and technical support to clients worldwide for their larger SAM555 and SAM750 events.